Originally Posted by
737 Driver
As professional pilots, we ought to meet an even much higher standard. When things started to go wrong, at least one of these pilots needed to look past the noise, place their hands firmly on the yoke and throttles, set the proper attitude and power settings, keep the aircraft in trim, and stay away from the rocks. That was all that was required. Everything else could have waited. The plane wasn’t on fire, the wing didn’t fall off, there were no bombs on board. This plane was flyable.
Yes, Boeing fracked up. Yes, the FAA and the airlines were culpable of going along with the fiction that the MAX wasn’t really that much different from the NG. But you know what? On any given day someone else could screw up and give us an aircraft that will malfunction in a unique and potentially dangerous way. And as always, the pilots are the last line of defense. We need to be mentally prepared for that reality or find another line of work.
I couldn't agree more. With modern airliners, it is part of the pilot's job to be able to fly the plane when the automatic systems fail. Otherwise, what are we doing? If the automatics always work, pilots are out of a job. And if we can't get the plane out of trouble, we might as well not be sitting up front, either. Yes, in this instance Boeing, etc. made the job harder. And they need to fix that. In the Ethiopian case, they had stick shaker shortly after liftoff. Had one minute and 15 seconds to absorb that. Then an uncommanded, continuous nose-down trim for 9 seconds. Count that out, it's a long time. I don't fly the B737, but I would hope I would catch that in my aircraft!
Originally Posted by
Chronus
I couldn`t disagree more. To fly the modern airliners you fly the automatics. If for whatever reason you cannot do that then its very much up to the avionics to do whatever they have been setup to do. These guys did not have a cats in hell chance of persuading the automatics to allow them to interfere. They simply lost the very short argument with the machine. What sort of last line of defense is that, is it a bit like the Maginot Line, invincible until proven otherwise and how many times does it need to be demonstrated before someone realises it aint working. Give me human error any day, I can understand that, computers, electronics and all that wizardry that goes with them, let the kids addicted to them play with it all, that would be a whole load safer.
I would hope any aircraft has some way of overriding the automatics and flying by hand, in case of multiple unmodeled failures. Be it cables, direct law, or whatever. And I would hope to train to be proficient in flying in that mode as well. I'm not trying to argue whether or not any plane is up to that standard, but that would be my goal. Either that or an ejection seat, but that doesn't work so well with pax.
